New Bike and Puppets

I fixed up a green, rusty bike with the words "Lady Bird" written on the front basket that radiates Arkansas 60's suburbia ((okay, what I IMAGINE to be Arkansas 60's suburbia- my brother tells me that Arkansas 60's suburbia doesn't exist)) , but my dad insists that without the fat tires it can't be from the 60'. Before I arrived in Namakkal, my impression of the city was straw huts, red dirt roads, and practiced beggars crawling to you in a mist like awoken mummies in an old horror film. Insert banana for straw, orange for red in red dirt roads, and those images are here minus the toilet paper for the crawling mummies, but this exists all outside of the city center. Right outside of my balcony, the silence when truck horns aren't beeping is precious, almost one million people are roaming to somewhere, and I, on my Lady Bird, get to ride amidst this craziness, and it is thrilling.

One statement/image, ironic, humorous, depressing, I don't know what to call it- maybe someone can help me find the word- I thought to share before but didn't. The day I walked out of the special ward which held the girl who had terrible things done to her and the man with everything soft inside of him locked in by his bone cage, I was taking around 5 retired women from Colorado who had come to see the clinic having raised some funds. Among their luggage, they had one suitcase stuffed with colorful, graciously ridiculous finger puppets which persons from their community had knitted to distribute as gifts for the children. When we walked out of the ward, there was some silence like when someone tells you that their mother died and you don't know what to say because your mother is still alive until one lady determined and confident spoke, "I'll have to go get some more puppets."

Do you laugh? Or nod and say "Yes!" this is a difference that we can make. Or know "No." this is the difference that I don't make. Or stay silent and search through the black suitcase and find a puppet with bright colors.

A Different Ward

This weekend I decided to take a quick break from War and Peace, so someone lent me the NY Times Bestseller, Everything is Illuminated. Before I started reading, I had visited the "Special Ward" at the government hospital in Namakkal. This is the corner where the sick HIV patients are shooed off too. Well, adjacent to the man who appears caged by his own bones, there was one girl in bed with a crowd of doctors around her. The tiny girl (8 yrs) is HIV positive, and her mother is negative. This is the peculiarity. She has never had a blood transfusion nor has been exposed to blood in a way that would transmit the infection. How has she become positive? The adopted naivete concerning the only other option disappeared when her father, who also happens to be her care giver, was tested and found positive.

Right, so I was reading this book. One passage seemed pertinent:

"And we must all be familiar with that most portentous of Biblical parables, the perfection of Heaven and Hell. And as we all do or should know, it was on the second day that the Lord our God created the opposing regions of Heaven and Hell, to which we and the slouchers, may they pack only their sweaters, will be sent, respectively. And but we must not forget that third and next day, when God saw that Heaven was not as much like Heaven as he would have prayed, and Hell not as much like Hell. And so, the lesser and harder-to-find texts tell us, he, father of father of fathers, raised the shade between the opposing regions, allowing the blessed and the condemned to see one another. And as was his hope, the blessed rejoiced in the pain of the condemned, and their joy became that much greater in the face of sorrow. And the condemned saw the blessed, saw their lobster tails and prosciutto . . . and felt that much worse for themselves. And God saw that it was gooder. And but the appeal of the window became too strong. And rather than enjoy the kingdom of Heaven, the blessed were fascinated by the cruelties of Hell. And rather than suffer those cruelties, the condemned enjoyed the vicarious pleasures of Heaven. And over time, the two reached an equilibrium, staring at the other, staring at themselves. And the window became a mirror from which neither the blessed nor the condemned could, or would, leave. And so God dropped the shade, forever closing off the portal between kingdoms ..."

As I enter the glass door of the special ward, I know that the shade has been lifted.

Healthy Results

Today I received the Hemoglobin results from the 100 students at Trinity Academy, the private school that we surveyed. The average hemoglobin level was 12.7 (g/dl) which is quite good considering the high prevalence of anemia in India. The Hemoglobin levels of adolescents should fall somewhere between 11 and 14 (g/dl). Below 11 is considered anemic. I still have yet to analyze the Hb levels in correlation with the survey questions. On Monday I begin the survey of the public school children. Results will be different.

Not Quite Compassion...

Are the artificial boundaries of human creation like state, country, ethnicity necessary to make society function? Probably. We use divisions to better understand ourselves and to feel a part of something. They also create competition, catalyzing growth in a myriad of ways, may it be, moral, intellectual, economic etc. At the same time, these boundaries create a hindrance for understanding and enacting a global compassion, leading to a norm of hunger, lack of education and HIV/AIDS in some countries and the "Super Size," country clubs, and superb education in others. Here is my solution: we find some aliens living on a nearby planet. Well, no, not quite, we create them. We clone earth with everyone and everything on it and place it a couple thousand miles away. Maybe, since not out of compassion and love that people will lift up each human on our planet to a life without poverty, the competition from the alien planet nextdoor will create a natural competition. Each planet wants to be better, richer etc. etc.

Hey, John Lennon

Yesterday I finished the 100th survey at the private school. I should receive the hemoglobin results next week. Once all of the data is entered, I will move on to the public schools where the conditions will be significantly different.

My thoughts are like two children on a seesaw. The child on one end represents a world of human progression- the notion that with hard work and compassion, we will eventually arrive at a world without poverty and equality of opportunity, and that is called "good." The child teetering on the other end represents the idea that poverty and the domination of one person over another are fundamental traits in humans because they lead to a dependence on the supplier, and what provides one with a greater sense of purpose than to know that others are dependent on you? It's hard to imagine that after how ever many years of human existence, if humans really wanted to make the world more equal and without desolate poverty that they wouldn't have been able to succeed already. Think of the verse from John Lennon's song:

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

Okay, I can imagine that John Lennon. But John, did you ever consider the people working at all of the NGO's and Non-profit organizations, or people fighting in politics for the "just" cause? Did you think about them? Where would we find any fulfillment or purpose in life if we didn't have things to fix, make better, or someone to need our love?

15 Pregnant women will change the world.

Today I accompanied Viji to Rasipuram, a nearby village where she does AIDS education and counseling before persons are tested. We met with 15 pregnant women to discuss the myths and realities of HIV. For example, many still believe that HIV is spread through the mosquito and day-to-day physical contact i.e. holding hands. Also, if the pregnant women do test positive, it is crucial that they know to come to the clinic during pregnancy. There is a pill that mothers can take during labor that will prevent mother to child transmission of HIV.

Question: Is there such a thing as "moral obligation?"

You're Right!

The first day of a class my junior year, the teacher handed us an account of someone being drawn and quartered. After reading the document, we were asked to share our opinion. Words such as "gruesome," "inhumane," "unjust," and "wrong" were included in the long list of adjectives written on the blackboard. The teacher questioned us: "'Wrong?' 'Unjust?' Quite contrary, the king was doing what was considered exactly right and just according to the law." After a fiery 30 minutes of discussion, we landed on the theme of a subjective right vs. wrong.

Imagine walking down the street in Minneapolis. On the sidewalk, you see a bare three-year-old, crying for help with no guardian in sight. In the US, wouldn't it be considered wrong to walk right past that three-year-old and do nothing to help the child? Now, imagine you are touring the streets of Delhi. On the sidewalk you see a bare three-year-old, crying for help with no guardian in sight. Well, I walked right by, and many Americans would probably say that I did the right thing. "There are so many, and if you help one of them, they will all come after you. It's better not to look and just give to a charity." Why is it wrong to walk past the three-year-old on the streets of Minneapolis and right in Delhi? Is it because right vs. wrong is all subjective?

Reflecting on the situation, I don't think so. It seems as if opposed to following what our conscience tells us what is right and what is wrong, we habitually allow personal morals to conform to societal morals, determined by what I think is convenience. In India, it wouldn't be convenient for me to stop and help the three-year-old. As we travel from place to place or from day to day, as society changes, morals change, constantly satisfying ourselves with the delusion that we are morally progressing. Just as drawing and quartering was deemed immoral and abolished in England in 1870, the last execution by gas chamber in the US took place in 1999. Currently, Americans are making a fuss about the lethal injection. I wonder what moral way we will find to execute someone next.

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery."- Bob Marley